This invention relates generally to packaging of food products, and more particularly to a foldable box for vertically stacking two or more food products such as pizza pies or other foods, or containers holding food, for transportation to a place of consumption.
In the commercial sale of food products, such as the ever-popular pizza pie, the product is often transported from where it is made and/or cooked to a place of consumption at a remote site, be it a residence, place of business, etc. It is typically either the purchasing customer or a delivery person who transports the pizza, often by automobile, to its place of consumption. This concept of "take-out" food has, in general, increased in popularity in recent years. Thus, there has been a need to properly store and protect the pizza during transportation.
The customer who consumes the pizza in a remote site desires that the pizza be maintained in its best condition while en route thereto. Thus, it is desirable that the pizza arrive warm, and without getting soggy and/or crushed.
A number of different means for packaging a pizza have been developed over the years with the aforementioned goals in mind. It is known in the art to place the normally-round pizza on a similarly-round corrugated or other disk, and then place both the single pizza and associated disk in a paper bag that is then stapled or taped closed. However, this method often allowed the pizza to become soggy since no moisture was able to escape the closed bag. Also, the paper bag provided virtually no protection against crushing. Further, the paper did not act as a good insulator for allowing the pizza to retain its warmth. Thus, often the pizza was not pleasingly edible by the time it reached its place of consumption.
Later on, it was known in the art to provide a chipboard box to house the pizza during transport. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,979,667 and 5,071,062. However, the early cardboard boxes were somewhat flimsy. Therefore, they were not much better at protecting the pizza than the aforementioned paper bags.
More recently, pizzas have been offered in a corrugated version of the older-style chipboard box, due to the fact that corrugated offers more crush resistance and reduces heat loss of the food product.
Most recently, the concept of pizza delivery has increased in popularity. Also, the concept of the pizza maker offering two pizzas for the price of one, or one pizza at full price and a second pizza at a reduced price, has increased in popularity. Thus, it has become more commonplace for a delivery person to make multiple stops on a route to deliver one or more pizzas to a plurality of different places of consumption. Also, the consumer who eschews delivery service and transports the pizzas home by himself/herself will often take home more than one pizza.
Thus, the need to properly transport multiple pizzas has spawned several solutions in the prior art. One has been simply to provide a large corrugated box and lay the pizzas therein side by side. However, this becomes cumbersome as the size of the pizzas increases. Also, the transporting vehicle may not be able to accommodate such a large box.
It is possible to transport two or more pizzas arranged vertically with respect to one another. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,984,734, 4,957,237 and 5,002,221. The goal of properly transporting multiple pizzas in a single structure necessarily dictates that the design and functioning of the box become more important than boxes for merely transporting a single pizza. The '734 patent to Zion et al. provides for a single carton tray per pizza, with the carton trays being vertically stackable on one another such that the bottom panel of an upper carton tray serves as the cover for the adjacent lower carton tray. The '237 patent to Madonna et al. provides for a single box with an internal platform that divides the box into separate vertical sections for storing two pizzas.
The '221 patent to Ragan discloses a single, rectangular-shaped box that houses two or more pizzas. The rectangular-shaped box provides for supports at the four corners of the box for a rectangular disk upon which an upper pizza rests. In a sense, the '221 patent to Ragan provides for more efficient use of cardboard than the aforementioned '734 or '237 patents.
However, the box described in the Ragan patent is not without its drawbacks. Because of the rectangular shape of the box, the shelf supports are located at the extreme outer corners of the box. Such locations may provide insufficient support for the upper pizza; that is, the upper pizza may sag and even break. Ragan attempts to alleviate this problem by adding a separator stand on top of the lower pizza in the center thereof. However, this necessitates placing a plastic object on the top edible surface of the pizza. The separator stands forecloses any clear span (i.e., clearance) that existed between the top of the lower pizza and the bottom of the upper pizza. Also, now three pieces--the box, disk and stand--instead of two, must be purchased, inventoried, and put together. This adds to the total packaging cost. Further, the stand may not be of a material that is friendly to the environment. Still further, the stand precludes usage of the box concept in Ragan for such items as apple pies. This is because the stand would harm the pie upon which it rests.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide an improved box for containing two or more products, such as food products--specifically, pizzas--stacked in a vertical manner, such that the products arrive at their destination in a desirable condition.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide a box for containing multiple perishable food products, such as pizzas, that maintains the food products in their best possible condition throughout transportation by retaining the warmth of the food products, by providing ventilation to allow excess moisture to escape so that the food products do not become soggy, and by preventing crushing of the food products.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a box for containing multiple circular pizzas that more closely matches the shape of the pizzas so as to make more efficient use of space and box material.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a box for containing multiple food products in a vertically stacked relation with proper and adequate support for each food product so that the box does not require additional support devices such as separator stands.
The above and other objects and advantages of this invention will become more readily apparent when the following description is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.